


Bed Full of Brandybucks

by Rubynye



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Interspecies, Multi, Nonmonogamy, Size Difference, Size Kink, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:56:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halbarad shelters from a blizzard at Brandy Hall in the winter of 1404.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Title: Bed Full of Brandybucks [Part 1]  
Characters/Pairing: Halbarad, Ranger of the North: Halbarad/OFC, Halbarad/Merry, Halbarad/OFC/OMC, oodles of other pairings mentioned  
Rating: NC-17  
Summary: Halbarad shelters from a blizzard at Brandy Hall in the winter of 1404.  
Notes/Warnings: sheer utter idfic. Het, slash, threesome, assorted sillinesses.

 

Brandy Hall had a reputation, matched only by that of Great Smials, as being a place where anything might happen; certainly with the halflings, but also with the traders and Rangers who frequented the Shire. Of course, both dwellings also throve under the watchful eye of two of the three most powerful stewards of the Shire, the Master of Buckland and the Thain.

Halbarad the Ranger, friend and advisor to both, strode down a Brandy Hall passageway, the ceiling a bare fingersbreadth above his head, remembering his first sight of Brandy Hall in warm summertime light when he was a stripling of fifteen. Now the winter wind howled far outside, bearing in a severe white storm, but this warm hallway burrowed deep into the hill, and Halbarad would be the guest of the Master of Buckland until the storm was well over.

The hobbit woman leading him, all dimples and warm brown curls, glanced back to smile at him, her mouth like a red berry, and turned their path into a lower hall where he had to duck the lintel and lean forward to safeguard the crown of his head. Halbarad had not seen home in three months, or lain with another soul in nearly as long, and the halfling lass before him looked fairly edible in her plump pink beauty, her soft ruffled skirts and sleeves and bonnet over her softer, warmer skin. He breathed steadyingly and reminded himself that sleeping under cover in a great house filled with hundreds of cheery halflings was company enough. His first experience of bodily love had been when he was seventeen, in Arathorn's arms beneath a wide summer sky, but his first time with a halfling had been the following winter, during a storm much like this one, when a pert lad had shown Halbarad the Brandy Hall cellars and how little hands might stroke him to a peak. Still, he was bound by oath, conscience, and inclination all alike to never take advantage of any less than fully willing.

"Ah, here, Master Ranger," she lilted, voice like dark honey, "this room's the highest on the hall, with a great long bed. You'll be snug and comfortable here." She pushed open the door, and Halbarad ducked through and found the room indeed tall enough for him, and wide enough to stretch his arms, even if the bed was just barely longer than his height. Set high in the curved outward wall there was one small pane of window, rattled by sleet, but the room itself was warm, and Halbarad looked forward to stripping off his damp garments and wrapping himself warm in those heaped quilts.

But first... "The lad's bath-room is back up the hall to the right, and there's always someone in the kitchens to guide you to a bite." The hobbit woman smiled up at him, round as a fruit and all her teeth shining, and Halbarad smiled in return.

"Thank you," he said, and she dimpled further, curtseyed, and bounced on her way. Halbarad watched her go, skirts fluttering round her sleek furred ankles; he sat on the bed, stretched and stripped, stood the boots in the chimney-corner, and wrapped himself in a sheet for his journey to the bath-room.

A good scrub, a long soak and some friendly, curious, round-eyed company later, Halbarad headed back to his room and found his boots standing outside the door. His first inclination was to palm his dagger, but then he remembered where he was, and simply nudged the door open with his foot.

Inside he found his friendly guide perched on his bed, her bonnet off and her brown curls down around her shoulders and tumbling over her breasts, her blue eyes shining in the candle-light. "Hullo, Master Ranger," she said. "I came back by to see if you might need aught."

Halbarad took a deep breath, scented with woodsmoke and her sweet femininity, and told his member to stay quiet, considering all he wore was a damp sheet. "I thank you, Mistress---"

"Amethyst," she said, "Amethyst Brandybuck, formerly Chubb."

"And I am Halbarad son of Palanbarad." He stepped nearer. She looked up at him, wholly unafraid; her chin had a dimple too, and her throat looked tender as cream. "And I..." Halbarad reminded himself of the matter at hand. "I might use a place to wash my clothing."

"Nonsense," she replied briskly, jumping down from the bed. "Give those here." He did, retaining only his sword-belt and bandolier, and she bore the whole pile to the door and dropped it to one side. "There, we'll fetch them in the morning. You've a change for tomorrow?" He nodded, and she smiled wider, with a cheeky tilt. "Good. It wouldn't do to have you come down to breakfast all bare and frighten half the hobbits, and heat up the other half quite to burning." She pushed the door shut with herself still inside. "Now, Master Halbarad, was there any other thing you'd be wanting? You've held back on the words, but I can see it in your eye."

Halbarad sat on his bed, folding his hands in his lap to hide his disobediently swelling member. "Such service is not necessary, Mistress Brandybuck."

She laughed merrily, hands on her wide, round hips. "Ah, but 'tis wanted, I can see. And it would be ever so much my pleasure." She slid her hands up from her hips, up her rounded belly and her full breasts into her lush hair, and his itched to trace that path.

"I--- I would not harm you, Mistress Amethyst," he persisted, once more, to look in her eyes like shards of blue summer sky and be sure she did this all for pleasure, entirely willingly.

"I'm no untutored tween, Master Halbarad." She tossed her rich curls and stepped forward into his reach. "I have borne three babes," she told him, undoing the knot of her bodice laces, "and I think you would not harm any good person." She was so near, and so warm, and her rounded breasts peeped through her loosened laces; she laughed when he set his hands to her hips, squeezing them, feeling her soft plush flesh, and when he lifted her she gasped, her eyes wide, her full mouth parted.

She was solid and sturdy, for all he could have borne her with one arm, and her soft ruffled clothes were scented with lavender, her hair and skin even sweeter yet. She giggled and shivered and sighed as he unlaced her clothes and stroked them off, wishing every moment both to kiss every inch of her and to rear up and plunge within her to the peak he could feel straining in tension behind his eggs. He slid off the bed to kneel before her, laying her out on the mattress, and her soft plump hands tangled in his wet hair as he kissed her quivering thighs, her tender belly, and her sweetest inner parts, licking her open and tasting the pulse of her pleasure.

When she thrashed and cried out in her peak he had to pull one hand from the curve of her bottom to press his eggs to the point of aching. He couldn't let himself take her, not yet, not before he felt her joy again, heard her cry like springtime birdsong. He gripped her thighs in his hands, soft and rounded under his fingers, and licked her delicate petals and tiny nub as her fingers twined and tugged his hair, as she planted her heels on the mattress' edge and bucked into his mouth, breathless and damp and delectable.

Her second peak rippled into him, and he found his mouth sucking kisses up her shaking belly, up over her fluttering heart and her custardy breasts; he drew one into his mouth, and she laughed, brushing his arms with her foot-fur, moaning happily. He laved her throat and cheek, her flesh tender beneath his tongue, and kissed her deeply, tasting her sweet mouth and plump lips, as his hand found the back of her knee, as his prick found the hot, wet center of her body, and it was all he could do to roll to his back, even as he pulled her down by her rounded hips, pressing his hands into her resilient flesh. He pulled her down, rather than pressing her beneath him, but for all of that her sobbing gasp, her fingers clutching over his chest, smote him with anguish almost as great as the searing pleasure of sinking within her.

But then she laughed and cried at once, tossing her head back, and one of his hands found her hair as her back arched, her breasts jigged as she gripped the sheets with her plump toes and rode him, her plump wet thighs smacking his hips; he pulled her down against him, thrusting into her clinging heat, groaning as she clenched tight around him and peaked again, pleasure intense as pain, heat like light behind his eyelids and lightning up his spine. Halbarad found himself gasping beneath Amethyst as she shuddered and collapsed to his chest, shaking against and around him, breath blowing in pants across his skin. He stroked her, his hand all but spanning her waist, her bottom like a dewy ripe peach, and she giggled breathily and did not wince when he stroked his thumb along her splayed petals. He smiled at that surety he hadn't harmed her, and they lay as the candle burned down and the night deepened around them.

At length, she chuckled, and pushed herself off him, rolling to his side. Halbarad gathered her close in one arm, skimming the fingertips of the other over her skin, tracing the ruddy marks childbearing had left around her navel and remembering its fine dark traces on his wife's lean belly; she giggled and stretched beneath his hand, then sat up and patted at her disarrayed hair. "Oh, Master Halbarad, that was a glory. You're a glory."

"My lady sweet, I am but a man." He yawned before he could say more, and reached across for the coverlet. "A man sated and weary, who would welcome your company beside him this night."

Amethyst laughed again, low and sweet, and kissed the swell of his arm. "And where should I fit, beside a great tall Man such as you, filling all the bed?" She sat up, pushing her tousled hair back, and Halbarad noted with relief he'd left no marks on her creamy neck. "Alas," she went on, her blue eyes softening. "I would stay if I might, but I should go."

Halbarad nodded. "Thank you for this fair moment, then." He skimmed her cheek with his fingertips, up into her lush hair as she pressed her face to his hand, turning her head to kiss his palm, her long dipping lashes brushing his calloused skin. Then she raised them, slanting her twilight-dark blue eyes at him as she ran the very tip of her pink tongue up along a crease of his skin, kindling sensation like wet flame.

And it had been a long dark lonely fall, and Halbarad was truly not nearly weary enough, and he barely checked himself when she squeaked as he caught her up, lifting her to him, feeling the springy give of her flesh beneath his mouth. She gasped in laughter, hands tightening on the muscles of his shoulders with each kiss he sucked across her shoulders and breasts, and it was all he could do to open his fist from around her hair, to not roll her beneath him. He burned to be within her, but not yet, not so.

He slipped backwards off the bed to his knees, and Amethyst sat up, her curls tumbling over his arms, her hands on his around her soft little waist. "Kiss me," she said, and he only just kept his rush from a lunge. She moaned into his mouth, and he found his hands too tight on her fine skin, his arms pulling her down off the bed towards him, his mouth unable to draw away from the sweet plumpness of hers. He turned her so she would not have to strain her legs round his waist, and she clutched the sheets and cried out high and gasping as he pressed up into her again. "Slow, slow," he groaned through gritted teeth, against the sucking wet heat of her pillowy body.

"Oh," Amethyst huffed, half impatient and half laughing and all breathless, "Leave that, Master Hal!" She drew up, pulling on the sheets, pushing her toes against his thighs. "Tup me, my dear!" She pushed down, biting her lip, hair curling beneath his chin, sinking him in deeper than he'd've dared, and they groaned together. "Tup me," she demanded again, half singing the words, and Halbarad swore or prayed, and he laughed and wound his arm around her, her breast ripely heavy in his hand, and snapped his hips upwards. Her plush thighs smacked against his, and she cried out exultantly, and he could no more deny her than he could himself. Groaning in bone-deep pleasure, fist clenched in the sheets, Halbarad bounced Amethyst in his lap and felt her flutter and clench around him, felt her every cry and scream and breath, felt her peak and peak again for as long as he could hold off till she braced her hands on the mattress' edge and pushed back against him, until she brought him to a peak so stunning he slumped forward as if knocked senseless.

At length, Amethyst giggled beneath him, tucked into the warm hollow his body made with his head and arm dropped to the bed. "Oooh," she moaned. "Oh, can I walk after that?"

"Have I hurt you?" Halbarad sat up, lifted her to the bed, turning her as he did, but she was all smiles. And finger-press bruises, purple marks along her skin from shoulders to thighs. "My little lady, I---"

"Don't you fret now," she said, laughing, wrinkling her round nose, brushing her fingers over his beard. "Oh, that was lovely and wild, like being caught up in a storm." Pressing on his shoulders, she stood between his knees, her legs quivering only slightly. "Ah, seems my feet will still hold me."

Looking up into her heavy-lidded, smiling face, Halbarad could only but wrap his arms gently round her and smile back, and kiss her sweet mouth.

At length, and after many kisses, Mistress Amethyst dressed, laughing at Halbarad as he tried to straighten her fluttery little clothes and draping them over his arms as if he were a cloak-rack. When she was dressed and laced and bonneted, looking almost unchanged but for the glow across the tips of her ears and the arches of her cheeks, and the purple kiss-mark peeping over her collar, she took Halbarad's face between her hands and kissed him once more. "And off to bed I go," she said cheerily, and yawned. "And so must you. Goodnight, Master Halbarad."

"Goodnight, Mistress Amethyst," he said, carding his fingers through her beautiful hair, before letting her go and pulling himself up into the warm bed. The room was snug, the air still thick with their mingled scents, and he wrapped the quilted counterpane round himself and smiled as he dozed off.

He woke late, his window already grey with light, in time to hear two halfling lads with a squeak-wheeled cart commenting on the size and outlandishness of his clothes as they took them off for washing. Smiling in the morning, warm all through, and rather hungry, Halbarad rose and stretched, and was about to dress when a knock sounded at his door. He opened it slightly, looking around it, and found his host's grandson Meriadoc, smiling up from beneath rich yellow curls, standing with fists on belt before a pair of round-eyed young servants, the redheaded lad with a bowl and a steaming pitcher, the dark-haired lass with an armful of towels. "Good Morrow, Master Halbarad!" said Meriadoc cheerily. "We have brought you water and towels, and my grandfather has sent me to be your companion and guide for however long you might need me."

"I thank you, Meriadoc Brandybuck," said Halbarad, nodding to the goggling young servants also. "Did your father or grandfather require my presence?" He pulled the door open as he spoke, keeping himself folded behind it, and Meriadoc led in his charges, who deposited bowl, pitcher, and towels, all the while glancing between their tasks and Halbarad.

"Father's inventorying the equipment for clearing up after the storm ends, shovels and boots and all; Grandfather's in the Great Hall listening to little lasses sing. And I," and here Meriadoc flourished a low bow, "am at your service, Master Ranger." And when he stood, he skimmed his eyes up the length of Halbarad's leg and flank like light fingertips trailed along the skin. Halbarad thought of Amethyst, and had to stifle a laugh.

"I am glad of the company," Halbarad said, having managed to summon some appropriate gravity, "and I will be out shortly, dressed and ready for the day.

"I'll just wait out here, then," Meriadoc said, cheek dimpling as he grinned, and shooed the staring servants out so Halbarad might wash and dress in momentary peace.

Halbarad had a wonderful day with Merry, as the Brandybuck scion asked to be called. In the dining hall he was introduced to countless relations, fed more and better food than he commonly ate in two full days, and just when he was leaving the hall brought back again for second breakfast. Finally, when Halbarad protested he could eat no more, he was conducted at a slow, interrupted pace through the most thronged halls of the place and finally to the library, a round, high-ceilinged room lined with bookshelves. There Merry settled Halbarad in a cushioned nook and sat just near enough for their feet to rest together; while Halbarad refreshed his knowledge of maps and terrain, Merry read the history of the North-kingdoms that Halbarad had recommended and peppered him with countless questions.

So Halbarad read, until he noticed that his feet were no longer warmed by small furred ones; he rose and looked to the doorway, where he saw a shadow in the hall outside, and ducking through found Merry sitting in the window seat, staring out at the opaque white beyond the small panes set into the frame. A net of shadow lay over him as he turned his face up, grey eyes bottomless and mouth oddly grim.

But then he smiled, and Halbarad leaned his hip against the window seat and smiled in return. "A pensive moment, my lord Merry?"

Merry waved his hand, which was square and finely made, as he ever did when Halbarad used such an honorific. "Just... looking at the snow, thinking about it falling all across the wide world. I could ask you a thousand questions about the world, about all the lands beyond the Shire."

"To match the thousand questions you have asked so far today?" Halbarad teased. Merry's teeth were white and even in his grin, and he was beautiful in the square firm way lads are beautiful, the plump sturdy way halflings were beautiful.

"If you find me inquisitive, you should meet my cousin Pippin Took!" Merry laughed, but his grey eyes turned to the window. "He's in the Tookland, in the heart of the Shire. I haven't seen him for a month and more, the little imp." Merry looked at Halbarad again, up through his lashes now. "He'll be irate with envy when I write him to tell him we hosted a Ranger." Halbarad had visited Great Smials as well, most recently the springtide past, and recalling the ardency of Tooks, he bowed his head in concession; laughing, Merry slipped from the window seat to stand before him. "Though, there is one question, but I need to face you to ask."

Halbarad obediently knelt, one knee to the floor, now looking slightly up at Merry, whose grey eyes had gone dark and glittering. "So, Master Ranger, my grandfather's house has sheltered you and fed you, lent you books and company. Is there any way in which our hospitality lacks? Have we seen to your every need?"

"Of course, my lord Merry," said Halbarad, who had not been so fed, rested, nor warm since his last visit home.

"And yet, Master Halbarad, has anyone warmed your bed?" Merry leaned near as he asked; Halbarad, unsure if he should speak of Amethyst, paused with lips apart, and Merry took the opening and pressed on him a kiss firm and commanding.

Halbarad was used to long stretches of time alone or with formal company, to continence and even deprivation. And yet, despite his warm and vigorous dalliance with Amethyst just the last night, he found his arms winding tightly around Merry, his hands pressing to rounded muscles firm beneath a padding of generous flesh, as Merry wound his square hands in Halbarad's hair and chuckled into the kiss. Halbarad sat back on his knees, drawing Merry with him, who straddled his lap and writhed, rubbing a round bottom against Halbarad's rapidly stiffening member.

Merry's mouth was sweet and firm at once, and it was with difficulty that Halbarad pulled back from it to gasp, "Oh, my young lord Meriadoc, we cannot do this in a hallway!"

"This is hardly a time to be formal," Merry said, and licked Halbarad's nose with a lively tongue. "But, I suppose you're right. Come, let's find your room."

The dining hall was full of halflings and overflowing with cheery noise, the hallways thus emptied, and Merry squeezed Halbarad's fingers and gave him such sly looks that his blood fairly boiled in his veins. When they reached Halbarad's room he barely spared a glance to notice that his boots had been returned before he pried open the door, lifted Merry by the arms, and spun him inside, shutting the door with Merry's body surely more roughly than he ought, but all he could see was Merry's laughing face, all he could feel Merry's hands tight on his arms and Merry's mouth both firm and ripe beneath his.

Halbarad held the lad there up against the door, and kissed his cheeks, his chin, his smooth throat and the hollow of his collarbones, as Merry laughed and gasped and moaned, "Ah, Halbarad, oh, yes." Halbarad pushed him higher, his scent rich and fresh as his shirt crinkled beneath Halbarad's nose, and Merry groaned, "your beard, your mouth" just as he untwined his hands from Halbarad's hair long enough to undo his breeches. Merry gave a full-throated cry when Halbarad sucked him in, a goodly-sized prick hard and lovely on his tongue, and Halbarad held him up, luxuriating in the feel of him, in the weight of him against his arms and on his tongue, as Merry thrust into his mouth, bracing one foot on his shoulder, hooking the other round his back.

Merry was vocal and imperious as the prince he was in all but name, tugging Halbarad's hair, crying out, "yes, yes, suck me, yes, your mouth, so hot, suck me suck me oh yes ah!" Halbarad joyously obliged, sucking firmly till Merry arched into his mouth with a wordless shout of joy and spurted over his tongue. He let him go and kissed his ankle, lowered him to kiss his panting mouth, and Merry wound both legs around Halbarad's ribs and kissed him with open eagerness.

"Oh," Halbarad gasped, pulling back to look at Merry, at his flushed cheeks and heavy-lidded smiling face. How did the halflings always do this to him? His first woman had actually been a hobbit matron, sweet and round with crisp brown curls and flashing brown eyes, who had given him shelter in her farm-smial against a spring storm when he was nineteen; at night she'd come to him where he lay rolled in his cloak by her fire, and taught him the ways of a woman's body, called him afterwards a 'dear lad' and kissed his nose, just as Merry did now, following it with a lick, and a laugh.

And Halbarad could not but taste that laugh, could do nothing but stagger to the bed and lay Merry down and curl around him. "How did you do that?" Merry asked in amazement, undoing the laces at Halbarad's throat.

"Do what, my dear young lord?" Halbarad wanted Merry nude, wanted to strip his clothing from him, but he made himself wait, gentled his hands to stroke Merry's hair and cheeks and shoulders.

"Know exactly how to have me, just so." Merry grinned, and reached, and pulled Halbarad's tunic from him, laughing at the undertunic. Halbarad stripped that off, and Merry's laugh caught in his throat. "Oh, all these scars!" Merry pressed one hand to one of the largest, a slick stripe across two of Halbarad's ribs. "What a mighty warrior you must be, to have won all these battles."

Halbarad pressed his hand over Merry's. "I have done what was needful," he said, and Merry leaned up and kissed him again, undoing his clasps and buttons as he kissed; when he lay back again he writhed, kicking and pulling, and was bare in much shorter order than Halbarad would have expected. Bare, sturdy, muscular and smooth-skinned, utterly delectable.

Merry stretched beneath Halbarad's gaze, laying himself out as on a dish. "Here I am, Master Halbarad," he said, merrily indeed. "And now you may tup me."

Halbarad laughed at the delightful frankness of the invitation, stroking his hand down Merry's chest and over his lightly rounded belly. "I could not ask that of you," he said gently, watching Merry's brows draw down and his rounded nose crinkle with ire, trying to find another way to explain that didn't refer to Merry's stature. He should not have taken Amethyst so either, but there was still a difference between an experienced mother and a young lad, and Merry was barely a 'tween', as halflings called them.

"You think I don't know what I'm asking," said Merry, fierce and lovely, and Halbarad shook his head and kissed that angry mouth till it eased and warmed and molded to his, till Merry sighed and gripped his cheeks, stroking his beard with fingertips. When the kiss broke Merry rose up on his knees, pushing at Halbarad's chest. "Lie down, then," he ordered, and Halbarad complied; Merry leaned to his chest, bit his nipple sharply enough to make his breath hiss through his teeth, and trailed fingers and tongue down Halbarad's ribs and belly, licking whorls into the hair, breathing hot on his skin. Halbarad rose on his elbows and watched Merry's curly bright head over his skin, trembled beneath his touch as Merry undid his trousers and peeled them down his thighs. "Mmm," Merry murmured greedily, and stretched his mouth wider than Halbarad would have guessed it could, fitting it round the head of his member, a tight ring of wet heat.

And then he sucked, and Halbarad groaned, and Merry chuckled a quiver into him and sucked all the harder, climbing over Halbarad's leg to kneel between his thighs. He cradled and stroked Halbarad's stones in his hands, bobbing his tight mouth over the head and even a fingersbreadth of shaft, and Halbarad clenched his hands into fists and did not let himself thrust, felt the slide of Merry's heated mouth and the stroke of his square hands, and dropped his head back and felt his pleasure build.

When his peak drew close he touched Merry's head as lightly as he could, gasping, "I'm near, I'm near," and Merry snorted and sucked all the harder, the order clear though wordless. Halbarad could not deny him that, and groaned loud and long as he peaked in Merry's mouth. Merry choked a little as he swallowed, and Halbarad's heart smote him; he sat up coughing, but then he laughed hoarsely, and flung himself into Halbarad's arms for a bittersweet kiss.

"Oh, you're glorious," Merry murmured against Halbarad's chin. "Glorious and bristly and delicious." He rubbed his cheek on Halbarad's beard, giggling, and Halbarad squeezed him with arms and hands, delighting in the feel of him, still too stunned for words. Merry laughed more as Halbarad kissed him over and over, rolling them over, kissing his cheeks and chest and chin, kissing his path down smooth chest and rounded belly to the lad's resurgent prick. He cupped Merry's firm round bottom in his hands and lifted him to his mouth, and Merry tugged his hair and groaned, "oh, your fingers too, please, please. There's grease in the nightstand."

Halbarad dragged his head up with a final suck. "Ah," he said, remembering, and reached for the nightstand, as the halflings called the little table with drawers they put by their beds. There indeed was a red pot of grease, rendered and strained, and Halbarad dipped two fingers in as Merry laid his thigh over Halbarad's shoulder, twisting impatiently. Halbarad licked Merry's thigh and mouthed it, the full muscle under the padded skin, and tried to go slowly as he pushed his fingers within Merry, but Merry pushed to meet him, arching, crying out, and Halbarad could but watch his fingers vanish to the knuckle. Merry was gloriously hot and tight, and Halbarad felt his member twitch as he thought of how Merry would feel around it, but no, he had told himself he would not. He sucked Merry's prick and fingered him deeply, as Merry pressed his thigh against Halbarad's ear and thrust into his mouth, shouting his pleasure, writhing between his hand and his lips all the way up to a thrashing, magnificent peak.

"Oh," Merry gasped, damp and warm and heavy with satedness, as Halbarad pulled him down and kissed him, unable to have enough of him. "Oh, there's so much of you," he murmured drowsily, turning his face along Halbarad's arm. "And now I'm hungry," he muttered, and laughed, and was asleep in moments. Halbarad laid his head beside Merry's, pulling up the counterpane, spread his hand over the lad's belly, and let himself drowse. Merry's imperiousness and plump sturdiness reminded him of his first human girl, the lovely round-faced daughter of the Lord of Pelargir.

He had been twenty-one, and foolish and young, and had taken a mission across Eriador to ease his heartsickness at Arathorn's marriage. He arrived in Pelargir to find the city full of spreading uproar, and ran to the seashore to see a massacre of attendants on the steps and Corsairs fleeing down a quay to their black ship, dragging a maiden in shining white. The knights of the city foundered in the sand, but Halbarad had run the quay, struck down the Corsairs, and thrown his sword straight through the heart of the captain on deck, all before the city's archers mustered their fire-arrows. The ship finally burned, the knights floundered up and struck down those who escaped the wreck, but Halbarad brought the princess back beneath the safety of his arm, as she clung to him and would not suffer even her maids to draw her away till they had reached the palace tower.

At length the festivities had died down, and he had found his bed, and found her in it. Thinking himself gallant he had gently explained that he was a Ranger of the North and could not wed her, and she'd laughed and bared her smooth shoulders and plump breasts. She was not there to wed him, she said, but to reward his valor and possibly improve her family's blood. And he was flattered, and she was blonde and fair and shining in the moonlight... Excepting the nighttime tumble, he should tell that story at supper, Halbarad thought cheerily, as Merry's breath came sweetly between his parted lips, and fell to sleep.

Merry woke him with kisses and shoves to his shoulders. "Come on, up, we mustn't miss dinner, we've missed luncheon and tea."

The storm still howled outside the windows, but Halbarad's time-sense indicated it was only mid-afternoon. "Is dinner served early?"

"No, but we're off to the bath first! You must be presentable when I show you off to all of Brandy Hall." Merry attempted to hold Halbarad's hand, climb from the bed, and pull on his breeches all at once, which was rather an amusing sight. Halbarad disentangled himself long enough to wrap himself in his sheet, and let Merry lead him away.


	2. Bed Full of Brandybucks [Part 2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halbarad shelters from a blizzard at Brandy Hall in the winter of 1404.

Title: Bed Full of Brandybucks [Part 2]  
Fandom: LOTR, hobbitfic/interspecies  
Characters/Pairing: Halbarad, Ranger of the North: Halbarad/OFC, Halbarad/Merry, Halbarad/OFC/OMC, oodles of other pairings mentioned  
Rating: NC-17  
Summary: Halbarad shelters from a blizzard at Brandy Hall in the winter of 1404.  
Notes/Warnings: sheer utter idfic. Het, slash, threesome, assorted sillinesses.

At dinner Halbarad caught sight of Amethyst sitting with a sandy-haired, mid-aged halfling who returned his glance, touched her cheek and whispered in her ear to make her blush and laugh as she looked over; Merry glanced at her, then up at Halbarad, and snickered knowingly. Halbarad was a warrior who'd faced beasts and orcs and pirates, and yet it took all in him not to become flustered as he turned his attention back to his platter. Ah, hobbits.

After dinner Master Rorimac announced a dance, and Merry turned in excitement towards the clearing-up, then spun back to Halbarad. "Will you be all right, or would you dance, or--- or?"

He bounced on his feet, looking so eager Halbarad had to laugh. "Dancing, I should appear a crane among songbirds," he said, and Merry's round eyes crinkled with his grin. "Go dance. I shall be fine."

"All right, then," Merry said, and squeezed Halbarad's hand, and ran. The hobbits rushed in all directions around him, pushing away the tables and chairs, pulling out longer tables and musical instruments. Halbarad watched the bustling for a bit, then left for the library.

So his evening passed; he finished his last map-book, then returned to watch the dancing and enjoy the sprightly music. There was more majesty in the formal performances of Minas Tirith and Pelargir, more fine-tuned skill in the Elven haven of Imladris, but never more cheer than in halfling music-making, he thought, tapping his foot as he sat smoking in a corner. Every time he saw Merry the lad had a different partner; thrice, halflings came to him in couples to ask him to dance, and each time he nearly said yes.

Instead, he eventually took himself to his room, to sleep another warm night under cover. He undressed to his underbreeches, and was just sliding between the covers when there was a knock at his door.

He threw on his undertunic, opened the door and found two hobbits, nearly but not quite of age, the lass with a lamp in hand and the lad with a basket, standing big-eyed and eager-faced before him; the lad was the water-carrier from the morning, his head covered in fluffy auburn curls, while the lass had shining golden hair in tight curls, a few shades lighter than Merry's, and a mouth like a pink rosebud. Truly, the halflings intended to vanquish him with attentions, Halbarad thought, as he let them into his room.

"Good evening, Master Halbarad," said the lass, who was dressed finely in green and pink velvet and white muslin, her green hair-ribbons edged and threaded with gold. "This is Vigo Hayward, and I am Calendula Brandybuck, and we saw you leave the dancing early, so we wondered if we might come speak with you."

"Of course," Halbarad said, bowing low, and Vigo bowed and Calendula curtseyed, and they all three smiled.

Viggy and Callie, as they called each other, had brought a basket of sandwiches and sweets, and a flask of the liquid fire the halflings distilled from wine and called their river after. As they fed him they told him of their evident love match, of how they'd met as teenagers when she traveled to the south of Buckland and Viggy's travel from the tiny village of Haysend up to Brandy Hall for love of her, of her mother's disapproval and their thought to elope to Bree-land and settle amongst the hobbits there.

Halbarad swigged a burning-sweet mouthful of brandy and looked up at them, leaning against each other on his bed, from his seat on the floor. Viggy was a strong lad, and Callie had a sure will, but it took more than that to win through the dangers of the Old Forest and the Great Road. "I would advise against such a venture," he told them honestly. "I would not see grief befall you, my sweet friends."

Halbarad heard himself, and blinked, and replaced the flask in the basket. Viggy and Callie, absorbed in each other, fortunately did not notice. "So I said," Viggy told her, with a heavy sigh and a hand on her cheek.

"So you did," Callie agreed, "but that leaves me still to wed in April, wed and gone to Little Delving where you can't follow."

Halbarad thought of Aragorn and Arwen's long, far-ranging love. "There is always hope," he told them, and they looked so uplifted he hoped he had not given them false encouragement.

Then he knew he had given them unwittingly true encouragement when they leapt down from the bed to throw their arms round his neck and kiss his mouth and eyes. "You've cheered us, Master Halbarad," murmured Viggy, as Callie kissed him; "so let us cheer you," she finished, as Viggy took over the kiss.

Truly, he had had enough brandy and more, but the pair of them, sweet and soft and firm, hazed his mind more than the liquor. He had fought a half-dozen assailants time and time again, had triumphed unaided over a score of ruffians and orcs well more than once, but two laughing halflings, switching off the duties of kisses and unfastening, overbore him and stripped him there on the floor. They stripped each other as well, making shorter work of Callie's laces and buckles than even Amethyst had made of hers, and Viggy fairly burst and wriggled from his clothing.

And then Halbarad's hands were full of them, Viggy's wiry frame and square shoulders, Callie's round high breasts and sleek hips. Their tweens, hobbits called their maiden days of youth, when they had reached their full growth but not yet their adult sense, and these two made Halbarad recall his own foolhardy youth, remember the feeling in his bones; Callie's mouth on his, Viggy's roving his member, Halbarad recalled when he'd rescued a slender-hipped village maiden from slavers, how she'd wound herself in his cloak with him that night and kissed him till he'd loved her as gently as he could, till she'd wept for gladness than her maidenhead was lost in joy rather than pain.

Callie felt like that maiden might have with more experience, her little hands and petaled mouth devastatingly sure. When Halbarad sat up, pulling Viggy up to kiss him, Viggy wound his corded arms round Halbarad's neck while Callie disentangled herself "to fetch that pot of grease, I know it's here somewhere." Halbarad felt Viggy in his hands, shoulderblade moving beneath smooth skin and the twist of his waist as he knelt between Halbarad's thighs, and they both watched Callie move in the candle-light. She was maiden-slender for a halfling, though near as plump in herself as the Pelargirian princess; her breasts were high and round and pink with kisses, and when she turned her behind was like a white apricot just blushed with pink, so perfectly shaped Halbarad found himself murmuring "callipygian".

Calendula looked over her shoulder, curls tumbling down her back to the dimples above that lovely behind. "What was that? It sounds Elvish."

"It is," Halbarad said, pleased to know she knew the sound. "It is Sindarin for 'beautiful'." Striving unaccountably for decorum, he left off, 'of buttocks,' remembering still his youthful shock to find Elvish languages had such pertinently fleshly terms.

"Aye, she does have the prettiest arse in Buckland," Viggy agreed with a saucy wink for Halbarad, and decorum really was well and truly past.

"And how should you know?" Callie demanded, laughing as she bore back the pot. "How many have you surveyed?" Her pretty mouth was parted for more words, but Viggy leaned over, caught her hair and kissed her, and Halbarad could but laugh as well, his merriment kindling from theirs.

When they drew back from each other, his hands had settled on their shoulders, and he stroked his thumbs through soft red curls and lacy golden ones and basked in two sweet smiles. "Come now," he said, and lifted Viggy then Callie to the bed for the joy of feeling them. "We have this soft bed and all, there is no need to do this upon the floor."

"Then why are you still down there?" asked Viggy, tugging Halbarad's hand; Callie stroked the other where it lay on her thigh.

"The better to regard you both," Halbarad answered, and they laughed and wrapped their arms round each other, somehow displaying one another all the more. "How do we look?" asked Callie, snuggling her golden head beneath Viggy's chin.

"Wonderful," Halbarad could but reply, and rise on his knees to kiss them one after the other.

At length, and after many kisses, he found himself stroking Viggy with hair and hands, the lad's muscles hard and trembling beneath his mouth, as Callie held Viggy's head on her soft lap and carded his hair. Though Halbarad would never say this, for it would truly raise their ire, one of the sweetnesses of halfling lads was how, with their smooth skin and beardless chins, they were like the best of man and women melded in one. So he'd thought long ago as he sheltered a runaway hobbit one warm autumn night, watching the lad writhe in pleasure between his hands; so he thought now, as he fingered and laved Viggy till he arched beautifully, clutching handfuls of Halbarad's hair, and peaked.

And then there were their sweet lasses, rounded bundles of femininity. Callie kissed Viggy's breath back into him, till he sat up and pushed her gently towards Halbarad, and she laughed and reached out, sinking her fingers into Halbarad's hair. She sighed like singing as he kissed her, reaching one hand back to fold it with Viggy's, who shared her beauty with Halbarad in enraptured glances, who laughed and murmured in her ear as Halbarad tickled her thighs with his beard and kissed her open, drinking in her sweetness as she cried out in rising cadences and shrieked in joy.

"Oh, ain't she pretty as the morning?" Viggy said, as Callie laughed breathlessly and batted at him. "Come here with that." Viggy licked along the grain of Halbarad's beard, licked his way into his mouth, and Callie's lips tight around his nipple made him shake and growl, made them both breathe in sharply with fearful delight. They drew him up into the bed, where he felt impossibly huge and long-limbed as he tried to settle without knocking them aside, considering how they kissed and clung to him. Plump greased fingers stroked him, plush mouths roved his eggs, and he groaned as they laughed into him and kissed each other across his flesh, bringing him to a peak that felt like it shattered and remade his inmost being.

Callie licked her fingers and her lips, and Viggy caught her hand and licked the palm, and they traded a knowing look that made Halbarad think of his Aranael's bright eyes; they clambered up him as if he were a log, but he was prepared now, and he caught them both, sinking his fingers into their hair, cradling their heads in his hands. They kissed him, and each other, and soon were kissing madly in the circle of Halbarad's arms. He held them and watched as Callie wound her legs round Viggy's waist, as his sleek buttocks began to clench in the ancient rhythm, as they loved each other with him as witness. They did fit beautifully, he noted, as Viggy nestled his face to Callie's throat, as her damp eyelashes fluttered and she sank from her peak to languid satedness. They fit beautifully, and he wished them all fortune in finding their way to wed, just as he did Aragorn and Arwen.

And that made him think, as he blew out the lamp and wound himself and his two young guests in the quilting, of Aragorn's glow when Halbarad came to visit him in Imladris in his twenty-first year; Halbarad snuggled two curly heads beneath his chin and remembered the light of Rivendell on Aragorn's young, barely-bearded face, as he'd told Halbarad of his love between kisses, looking younger but otherwise just like his father had as he'd told Halbarad of Gilraen. Thinking bittersweetly of the lives his had entwined with, feeling Callie and Viggy breathe as they pressed softly to him and listening to the distant howl of the wind outside, Halbarad drifted off to sleep.

When he first woke it was dark, and the halflings were whispering as they felt about for their clothes, discussing bitterroot tea and whether or not it might help their plans if Callie became with child. Viggy helped Callie clamber into the bed so they might kiss Halbarad goodbye, and he smiled and returned the kisses even as the warm darkness smoothed across the insides of his eyelids, their sweet mouths brushing his even as he sank back into sleep.

Aragorn, who had traveled far to the south, had once told Halbarad of a creature which drank prodigious quantities of water, then stored it in protrusions on its back. He supposed, when he woke to pale light and his belly told him it was nearing noon, that perhaps he stored up sleep so. The window showed white sunlight on glittering snowdrifts, so Halbarad went in search of a quick wash and the digging-crew.

He found them while chewing on the sandwich Merry pressed on him, a whole loaf of bread sliced and layered with butter and cheese. "My cousin Callie said at breakfast that you were to be fed before you might set yourself to work," Merry said with twinkling eyes, "so I've kept this trifle aside for you till I might see you." Halbarad would have liked to have given his thanks in a kiss, but Merry had found him in the crowded hall before the great doors, so he answered with a deep bow and delighted in Merry's smile.

Saradoc, leading the shovelers and sweepers, said, "We should be ill hosts if we let you help on an empty stomach," so Halbarad was made to finish his repast before he could pick up the largest shovel and set to helping. In hardly any time at all the courtyard was clear, walled with shining ramparts, and the wide spaces beyond Brandy Hall beckoned Halbarad to walk in them again.

So he thanked Saradoc, and set off to the Master's study, where Rorimac sat smoking while a half-dozen young hobbits sang to him. A wave of the gnarled, square hand sent them fluttering off, eyeing Halbarad as they went; one was golden-haired Callie, who pinkened even as she veiled her eyes with her shining eyelashes. And so, though he had not come to say this, Halbarad found himself telling Rorimac how he'd talked his granddaughter out of eloping, and how much she loved her humbly-born lad. Rorimac listened, stroking his pipe, and at the end he nodded and said, "She gets that strong will from her mother, who won't be pleased if I let her break her betrothal... but my little lass is the one who'd have to live with it if I didn't. So thank you for your counsel, and I trust you enjoyed your stay?" And now Rorimac fixed him with a raven's shrewd eye, and Halbarad had to smile as he agreed that he had, indeed, enjoyed himself greatly.

He left when there was still time to reach shelter before sunset, the land before him counterpaned in glittering white. Half the Hall turned out to see him off, and Halbarad waved to them all, smiling especially at Amethyst, Merry, Callie and Viggy, before turning to the way before him. Brandy Hall was always a place where anything might happen, he thought, as he hummed a song from the last night's dancing in time with his stride through the ankle-deep snows. Might, and frequently, delightfully, did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Callie Brandybuck is the daughter of Saradoc and Merimac's [made-up-by-me] older sister, Viola Brandybuck Brandybuck, 31 to Merry's 22.


End file.
